 Okay, hello and welcome everyone to the Limitless Careers Week and this afternoon's panel is the Physics in Medicine and we're celebrating National Careers Week in the UK. And these sessions are organised by the Institute of Physics and a fantastic opportunity to learn about all the different types of careers that physics can open up. So my name is Dr Yolanda O'Heaney and I'm a researcher at the University of Manchester. And so my research is developing new MRI techniques to look at the brain. And specifically, I'm interested in diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and how we can use MRI to kind of help to better understand diseases like this. So I'm also joined by four fantastic speakers from all over the world in science and their jobs look at physics and medicine in all sorts of ways. But they have, they all have got one thing in common and that's that they do physics and physics has helped them to get here. So we'll hear from each of the speakers and have a chat about their exciting careers. And then it will be over to you. So please send lots of questions. So when if you have any point, if you have a question, add it into the chat function and we can pick it up and we'll do our best to answer them. So this afternoon speakers, we have Lauren Byrne. So Lauren works as a medical physicist in the Galway Clinic in both radiotherapy and nuclear medicine departments. Her role involves calibrating and testing machinery and equipment in these areas such as PET CT scanners, spec scanners and radiotherapy treatment and machines. So she'll be telling us more about this. So she and her colleagues are also responsible for handling radioactive material that is used during certain scans or procedures and ensuring that all the correct protective measures are in place. So in her spare time, Lauren enjoys swimming, hiking and going for a run with her dog too. Our second speaker is Sophie Martin. And so Sophie from a young age was fascinated by the ways in which mathematics could be used to describe the world around her. She graduated from Imperial College London with a master's in physics in 2020 and is now taking a PhD in University College London. Sophie is keen to use her skills to help to tackle the problems of health care by imaging and modelling processes in the brain for dementia research. Physics really plays a key role in the tools required to obtain and analyse images. Our third speaker is Heidi Hernandez and Heidi is a trainee nuclear medicine technologist at the Royal United Hospital in Bath. She completed a bachelor's in science in biomedical science in the University of Plymouth and is currently studying part time for her MSc in nuclear medicine by the University of West England. Alongside studying, Heidi works in a nuclear medicine department at the hospital where patients undergo specialist scans after receiving radioactive injections. Outside of training, Heidi loves to travel and hopes to visit South America once the pandemic is over. And then last but least, our final speaker is Jamie Muburn Crook. And Jamie is a meteorologist. So he'll be telling us more about this. And so what he does is he accurately measures radioactive material to make sure that nuclear medicine and power plants are safe. So he began working in the National Physics Laboratory at the age of 16. Some of his work includes this anti-biral material used for the pandemic, creating CE certified PPE for the NHS staff, as well as winning the apprentice of the year for his work in 3D printing for cancer research. So outside of the lab, he enjoys playing rugby and dog walking. So we'll shortly be over to Lauren to start our session. But don't forget to ask as many questions as you have. And if you have a specific speaker that you're interested in getting a response from, just put that person's name in the chat. So over to Lauren. Hi, everybody. So as Yolanda said, my name is Lauren and I work as a medical physicist in the Galway Clinic. So it's in Ireland. Because once the start, I'll just give you a quick outline of kind of how I got into the job I'm in. So I studied physics when I was in school for my final exam. And I absolutely loved learning about how I could describe the world around me with all these equations and how I could kind of understand everything that was you know, from the very, very small to the really, really large. So I ended up studying a course called theoretical physics in university, which was kind of sounds complicated, but it's basically a very mathematically, a very mathematical look at physics. So how we can use maths to explain what we see in the world. So I did enjoy aspects of the course, but towards the end of it, I just felt a lot of it was quite abstract. And I kind of wanted something. And I suppose that I could kind of really understand how it applied to the world around me. So this is what motivated me to look into more applied branches of physics. And then through a bit of research and speaking to people that worked in the field, and also touring hospital departments, I decided that medical physics sounded like it would be a good fit for me. So this led me to do a master's in medical physics. And after that, I was able to work as an intern for a couple of months, and then finally secure a full time position as a medical physicist. So that's kind of the intro of how I how I came into the job. But I suppose the bigger question is what do I actually do? And so my job is mostly to do with using radiation in hospitals. And radiation is a form of energy, just like visible light. But the ones that we use in hospitals have higher energy. So I'm sure a lot of you have heard of x-rays, and then gamma rays are kind of higher energy again. So if we can actually just move to the next slide, please. So there's kind of two big areas you can work in as a medical physicist. So one is diagnostic physics. And this is concerned with using radiation to take images so that we can diagnose a patient. So for example, you might have an x-ray to determine if you've got a broken bone. So I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with that. So that's like the images there on the left. The other two scanners then the one in the middle is called a PET CT scanner. And the one on the right is called a gamma camera. And these can take images similar to those at the bottom, which are just kind of other ways of determining what's going on inside the patient's body. So the other big area then that you can work in is radiotherapy. Just the next slide, please. So radiotherapy is focused on using radiation to actually treat patients. So for example, the majority of them would be cancer patients. And we can do that either using the big machine that we have there on the left hand side. So it's called a linear accelerator. And this kind of treats the patient externally. And it uses it's kind of like a big extra machine. It just uses higher energy in order to kill the cancer cells. And then on the right hand side, you can see a different type of treatment using radiation. So these little seeds that you see at the top, they're actually naturally let give off radiation. And we can place these inside the patient, and it can kind of treat the cancer from the inside out. So these are kind of the two different like approaches, I suppose to cancer treatment with radiotherapy. So I work kind of between the two areas between the diagnostic side and the radiotherapy side. So my job has a lot of different parts. And so I'm responsible for making sure that all these machines are working correctly. So I have to do a lot of different tests on them to make sure things like, say, the, you know, mechanically the machine is working correctly, or that the the radiation that's coming out of it is the correct amount and the correct energy that we want, depending on what it's for. And then another big part of my job involves troubleshooting. So I might get a phone call from the machine during a treatment and they say the machine is cut out and we just figure out what's wrong. So I kind of have to go and figure out if it's something that I can fix. So maybe it would be like a communication error between different parts of the machine. And then I could fix that. But then if it's something that's bigger, so say maybe a part has to be replaced, I would be responsible then for getting in touch with an engineer and getting them to come and fix that before that's able to be used clinically again. So I really like this part of the job because you can get a phone call with an error you've never seen before. And you kind of have to use your knowledge and your your skills to, you know, figure out what's what's going on and what the best action to take is. Next slide please. So the another part of the job that I do is dealing with the radioactive materials in the hospital. So these are materials that emit radiation naturally. And so not like an extra machine which you can turn on and off. And but they naturally emit different types of radiation. So the seeds from the last slide are one example. But we also this can also come in like a liquid form that might have to be injected into patients for different types of scans. So you can see there in the first picture on the left, this is the area where I would prepare those injections. And so as you can see, there's like a really thick lump of glass there. So that's to protect the eyes. And the actual vial that contains the liquid is in case in that that big gray thing, it's a lead shield to protect the person that's preparing those injections. And you can see in the middle picture that the injection itself is actually in paste in in a protective shield as well. That's to protect their hands during the handling of that. So handling and disposing of that material is it's really important that that's done correctly. And that would be kind of the responsibility of the physics department, as well as kind of making sure that the signage like in that photograph is correct and the waste bins as well. So I suppose that's a very, very quick snapshot of some of the things that I do. And the best part of my job is that I get to work in kind of a technical and scientific role. But all the work that I do has such a clear focus. So everything comes back to, you know, being able to give the patient the best care, whether they're getting a scan, or they're having treatment. And, you know, whether it's maths that I have to do, or whether it's equipment I have to fix, everything comes back to giving the best type of treatment to the patient. So I really like that there's that individual kind of helping an individual on people on an individual level, as well as kind of the greater societal impact I suppose. And so yeah, that's me. That's kind of a brief idea of what I do. And I just hand back to Yolanda. Thanks so much, Lauren. It's so interesting to see that both you're very much hands on with the big machinery and then also the traces and so on that you use to help to see the results, which is fascinating. So now we can pass over to Sophie. Yes, hi, everyone. I'm delighted to be on the call today. I hope you can all hear me okay? You can? Good. So I don't have any slides, but I thought I'd just talk to you for five minutes or so about my journey into my PhD position at UCL. So I thought it'd be good to just start with a summary of kind of like my school journey. So I essentially grew up loving maths, loving physics, and I have to say, even though I've ended up doing medical physics as my PhD, I wasn't a child who knew that this is what I wanted to do. I kind of just followed what interested me at the time. So during school, that was very much the mathematical sciences. I really liked problem solving, and just the kind of curiosity that came with science and finding out more about our world and how things worked. So I kind of just followed that passion throughout school. And when I got to college and exam time, I started to think a little bit more about what I'd want to do for university and kind of why I was so driven by by subjects like maths and physics. So I did kind of apply to do physics at university, which meant I needed to take subjects like further maths, mathematics and physics. I also took history, because I was a student who kind of liked to have that balance of not just always looking at numbers constantly, but getting to kind of explore my creative side and writing and stuff. So I tried to keep up a good mix. And then I got to university and really, really enjoyed physics. So unlike Lauren, I did a straight physics degree, so not a theoretical one, which meant that I had a lot of opportunity to work in labs and carry out experiments in kind of like first, second and third year. And that was really cool, because you start thinking a little bit about kind of the scientific process and how to design experiments and how to kind of quantify things like quantifying certainties and how you present your results. So it was getting a little bit more technical and hands on. And during university, I actually carried out several internships. So this is kind of how I kind of knew that I wanted to do a PhD. I took my summer holidays as an opportunity to try out different things, whether that was kind of engineering roles at car companies like Land Rover and Jaguar, or kind of data science roles in energy companies. I just wanted to see all the different ways I could apply physics. And when I got to third year and finally, like the final years of university, we had a few modules on medical imaging. So kind of like what Lauren talked about, how x-rays are used to diagnose people and all the physics involved in how x-rays actually interact with those particles in our body. And for me, that was like the moment I knew that I wanted to kind of use my physics for, but in a way that I felt would actually like help people on a day to day basis. I think it was a revelation to see how the power of physics in terms of like medical imaging and understanding how we work and how we operate. So from there, I kind of applied to a degree, which well, a PhD course, which I'm on now, called a CDT in AI and medical imaging. So it's essentially bridging the gap between machine learning and medical imaging. So I'm sure quite a few of you may have heard about medical imaging. It's quite a popular term at the moment. And my research is all about kind of uniting the two and seeing how we can train machine learning models to help diagnose diagnostics. In particular, I'm looking at dementia. So Yolanda actually mentioned Alzheimer's in her introduction. And it's quite a big problem with our ageing population. You know, they're predicting an increase in the number of people living with dementia. So my research is all about how we can kind of better predict that earlier on in the pipeline and kind of see if we can kind of fight that battle. So yeah, that's a brief intro about me. Thanks so much, Sophie. And it's really nice to hear the different interfaces or the different experiences that you've had to be able to come to the conclusion of like physics has led you to medical physics. So that's that it's a nice trajectory that you've shown us there. So Heidi, would you like to introduce yourself? Hi, everyone. Thank you for having me here today. So I'm Heidi and I'm a trainee nuclear medicine technologist. And so I work in my department full time, but then part time outside of work. I'm also studying for my masters in nuclear medicine. So I absolutely love my job. It's really interesting. No two days at the hospital are ever the same. And basically what we do in our department is we see patients from all sorts of walks of life for different tests and scans. So nuclear medicine tests are very different to having an x-ray or a CT because nuclear medicine tests look at how your body is functioning or not functioning in some cases, whereas x-rays and CTs tend to have a look at your anatomy. So what's actually going on with how your body's looks like on the inside. So the main way that we do our tests is we usually inject patients with something radioactive. And a lot of the time we inject them with a substance that is labeled with something called technetium. And that's the radioactive bit. So what we do is we inject the patient, let that circulate around their body for a few hours, and then we bring them back and we scan them under something called a gamma camera. So a gamma camera is a really interesting bit of equipment. It's basically this massive radiation detector that picks up all of the gamma rays that are coming from the patient to basically form an image of what's going on inside. So I actually have an example of what those scans look like if we could go to the next slide. Perfect. So this is a whole body bone scan of a prostate cancer patient. So basically what we're seeing is a nice picture of the patient skeleton. And that's because we've injected them with something called HMDP, which has been labeled with that radioactive agent. And what the HMDP does is it goes all around the body, but it combines itself with calcium and helps in bone remodeling. So that's why we can see the whole of the patient skeleton, because a little bit of that injection has been taken up all over the skeleton. However, the bits that I've circled in red, where it's a little bit darker, that's what we like to call in nuclear medicine a hot spot. And it's basically where more of that injection has concentrated itself because there's more bone remodeling. So the bone is kind of being repaired in that area. And that could indicate anything from a fracture to infection or metastasis. So when cancer has gone to the bones of a patient. So quite often doctors like to use this type of scan when staging different sorts of cancers. So that's just one sort of scan that we do. And there are so many more and they're all so different and interesting. Unfortunately, we don't have enough time to talk about them all today. But I encourage you to have a look at Hopkins Medicine, the website that you can see at the top there. They explain a lot of the different scans, go into a bit more detail about them. And also the BNMS website is a really good page. If you're interested in a career in medical physics, it's another really good page to visit. And they've got some great videos and that kind of explain a little bit about more about what we do in Nuclear Medicine Day today as well. So me personally, I've had a bit of an unconventional route into this career. And when I was at school, secondary school, I always really, really loved science. And in particular biology was my thing. And I always knew that I wanted to work in healthcare. I did study physics, but I actually never thought it was something that I would need to use, especially going into healthcare. So I decided to study biomedical science at uni. And I found it really interesting. But when I got to the end of my degree, I realized I don't want to work in a lab. I want to work with patients every day. So after uni, I did a few different jobs whilst trying to figure out what it was that I really wanted to do. So I briefly worked as a dental nurse, and then I took a job as an administrative assistant in the hospital that I currently work in. After a year of doing that, I saw a job going as a dexer operator. And if you've not heard of dexer before, it's basically a bone density scan that uses X-rays to measure how strong people's bones are. So I got that job, and I really, really enjoyed it. And it was my introduction into kind of radiology and medical imaging. So our dexer scanner was based in our nuclear medicine department. So working there, I got to meet lots of nuclear medicine texts, and they told me about what they did. And I got to see a few different scans. And I thought, oh, this is really interesting. It's a nice mix of both science, which I loved at school. And patient contact, it's like the perfect mix. So when the department started advertising for a trainee tech, I decided to jump at the opportunity. And yeah, here I am. So I feel really lucky because every day I get to come into work and do something that I really, really love. And also, we're just helping patients as well at the same time. And it feels really nice to feel like you're contributing and making a difference to somebody's life, especially during like the pandemic at the moment, it feels nice to help people. Yeah, so that's me. Thanks for listening. And I look forward to answering some of your questions later on. Thanks so much, Heidi. Are you in the hospital at the moment and just trying to locate you? Yeah, you can see the ugly curtains behind me. That's how you know that you're in a hospital, I think. Well, this is really very interactive. It's great. So over to you, Jamie, would you like to introduce yourself to everyone? Yes, thank you very much. So I'm Jamie, I'm a nuclear metrologist over here at the National Physical Laboratory. And if we go to the next side where we can start looking at what the nuclear is, what radiation is. So today we've heard quite a lot of like gamma x-rays and the kind of idea is everything that we know of in the world is either mass or energy and energy tends to be travel along these waves and much like a wave on the sea, you can have long, slow waves or you can have short and sharp waves. In the low, we've got kind of our microwaves, our radio waves for our phones in the middle we've got the visible light that we see and at the really, really, really high energy, that's where we've got the gamma rays. Gamma rays are fabulous because they can travel through people really easily, which is why we use them for medical imaging so we can see what's going on. The problem we've found at MPL is whilst travelling through people that they can interact with the person and they might not necessarily travel in a straight line. And what this means to the doctor is they can end up with quite a fuzzy image. So if we take Heidi's images, for example, they're brilliant at showing where the cancer is. But if I was to ask you where exactly is it on a cell by cell basis, that's when you start going, oh, I don't know. And if you went into an operation to remove the cancer and the surgeons they're going, oh, I don't know, that can mean that they have to remove extra tissue just because you really want to be safe, rather better safe than sorry. So if we switch to the next slide on some of the work I've been doing, we take this pelvis phantom in the bottom left hand corner and this mouse phantom in the middle right or just in the middle top section. That is where we've 3D printed like fake bones which interact with the gamma rays coming up very similar. We can write correction factors and we can try and improve the imaging. And if the surgeon is getting clearer images, they know where exactly the cancer is, they can leave some of the healthier tissue behind and therefore the patient, but they've got more of their own tissue behind and they can just have a nicer life going forward. The surgery isn't as impactful on the patient. So beyond that, the kind of things I've been kind of work with and stand for. So a lot of my stuff is 3D printing related in the top right as the pandemic kicked off this idea of we needed PPE, but beyond that we needed PPE that works. And there was quite a famous story about a shipment coming in from Turkey and we actually had to say no to it because it didn't meet standards. So MPL is a national measurement institute or someone who works very closely with standards. We came up with this C certified design so people could print off their own face masks at home and provide them to hospitals with whilst knowing that it's going to be accepted because it met a C certification. And yes, as we can see on the far right hand photo, I've printed off about five or six hundred of these for going into hospitals. So those are some of the things that I've done historically. If there's anything on there that catches your eye that you'd quite like to ask me about, please drop it in the Q&A. I'm more than happy to ask any questions, answer any questions even. And the final point I'd like to raise is I'm even I'm a very different person in how I've got into science. We earlier had a question where you naturally good at school or naturally academic. I was naturally good at tests, no, naturally good at learning, naturally rubbish at tests. I could not do them to save my life. I'm dyslexic, which again doesn't help. But what it meant is dyslexia is not something we're which makes people worse, but rather an imbalance where you may be worse at spelling or time management. But I was in my case, I was quite good at 3D thinking. And it really helped when I left school at 16. And so leaving school, I was 16 years old in 2018. And this is a timeline of what I've been doing since I've left. So that's my kind of final thought is you can actually go into science and make a real impact even if you were just leaving school, even if school's not for you, that doesn't mean that science is. Thank you. Thanks so much, Jamie. It's such an interesting variation of the different work that you do as well. And I have to say that I'm dyslexic as well. And so numbers and timekeeping are not my thing. No, numbers are my thing, but writing is not my thing. So I suppose we all have to kind of play on our strengths as well. And I think that that's a really important and really important point. Thanks so much for sharing. So I have a few questions for the panel and I see that lots and lots of questions have come in on the Q&A. So keep them coming as things come up. But first of all, I'm really curious to know for each of you, what's the thing that really like motivates you with your job at the moment? Like what's the thing which gets you out of bed in the morning? So perhaps perhaps should we go over to Lauren first? Great. So I suppose the biggest thing for me is when I did physics in school and university, I kind of thought of, you know, that when I taught a physics, I thought of working somewhere like CERN or, you know, that these big particle accelerators, I'm not sure people are familiar with them, but, you know, working in a lab, you know, you think of Einstein, Newton, all those type of people. And I didn't really think that this kind of impact you could have on it kind of individual people was something I would get in a physics career. So I suppose one of the biggest, even though it's not the only thing I like about my job, one of the biggest motivators for me is that kind of connection to helping people and, you know, being part of somebody's journey and something that's, you know, being part of a patient's treatment, you're kind of a link in the chain of of helping get that person hopefully get better. So I think that's like the biggest motivator for me. And Heidi, how about you? Well, there's there's a few things, really. I think number one is just that I know that every day is going to be different. I've got quite a short attention span. So I don't like to be doing the same thing for too long. So although we might be doing very similar tests every day, it's the patients that really make it different. And you never know who's going to walk in the door or quite how your day is going to go. Some patients need a little bit more help. Some cases are a bit more difficult, or you come across things that you might not know. You come across things that you might not have even expected on the patient's referral form. So that's really what I love is just kind of going into the unknown every day and being excited by what I find. But also just the fact that it's the kind of job where you can continually carry on learning as well. There's always new developments going on and there's always a course that you can take or a way to kind of just keep your brain taking over. Ray, and how about you, Sophie? Yeah, I'd have to actually agree with Heidi, especially that last point about kind of technological advancements. And I suppose even though I'm perhaps less closely interacting with patients themselves and people walking into the clinic since I'm doing research, it's nice when you do get that interaction with clinicians and often with research in medical imaging and kind of medical physics. There is a high focus on translation. So how we can actually implement the ideas that we're discovering at our desks per se, but in the actual clinic as well. So it's for me quite exciting. And I suppose one of the big things I've loved as I've started my PhD is just seeing the breadth of application of physics in imaging technology. And it makes me quite excited about the future actually because the power of what we can do with this radiation that we're hearing about today is kind of endless and exciting. Yeah, it's amazing the scope of thinking about fundamental physics, but then applying it to healthcare. That is really cool. And Jamie, do you have anything else or what gets you out of bed in the morning? In a nutshell, I love what I'm doing. So for me as a child, I grew up in my granddad's workshop where we'd build things. We'd take a challenge and we'd solve it. And I love the process of solving a challenge. So after leaving school, I was like, but what's the biggest challenge I can find? Oh, cancer, that's pretty big. And it's the actual manner in which we solve it. That's what I love. Yeah, cool. And another question that I wanted to ask each of you was maybe thinking about when you're younger or even now, who really inspired you to kind of go into this field? And because I know that I particularly got into or I chose to do a physics degree at university because I saw, I don't know if some of you have seen him on the TV, Jim Alcaleli, and he did a programme called Atom. And that was the first time when I was like, oh, whoa, the scope of the universe. And so I wonder who perhaps inspired you, whether that's someone famous, someone personal. But if we go to Heidi. So I would actually have to say my science teachers at school really inspired me, which I think is a nice thought looking back. Yeah, they were just really motivating and so knowledgeable. Yeah, I'd have to give it to my science teachers at school because otherwise I think it's quite easy. If you don't have the right teachers, it's quite easy to get kind of a bit bored, but they were great. And does anyone else have particular inspirational figures in their lives to get to where they are now? Yeah, Milanda. So I actually, it's almost the same as I do. Like when I was under the age of 16, I loved maths, but I never really knew what physics was. I kind of thought physics was, you know, measuring things with the ruler and measuring curvy lines with the string and that was, you know, that was all I knew about physics. And it was actually the physics teacher in my school, who had been my science teacher at the time, convinced me to take it as a subject for my final exams because he just thought I'd like it and be suited to it. But lucky enough because I didn't, I didn't really know what it was. And I took a chance and ended up loving it. But yeah, so really teachers and having, it's not even just a teacher, but having somebody that can just let you know, you know, what's involved. I think a lot of people maybe think, oh, that's not for me. That's too hard. But I'm kind of like what Jamie was saying earlier, that you don't have to be like, you know, like a Einstein to, to love physics, to be good at it and to get into a job that you love that's related to it. Does anyone else have any, any other, any other shout outs that they'd like to mention? The people I'm really enjoying watching at the moment, Brian Cox does a show of the infinite monkey cage. That's fantastic. And also Elon Musk is a great person to watch on YouTube, just because he's got this charisma about him, but also the inspirations go out and solve the problem. Those are two good YouTube watches. Yeah. And also, I mean, recently, I've been listening to a lot of podcasts and there's one called Sean Carroll's Mindscape, where he kind of just talks to people about science and it's not necessarily like technical aspects, but it's kind of our interaction with science on a day-to-day basis. So like games, kind of like thinking about decision theory and probabilities that we encounter from day to day. So I quite like those, those kind of applications of science where you're very familiar. And in terms of my, my kind of inspirational journey, it's interesting because physics was one of the most like the toughest subjects I'd taken at school. I found it really difficult, even though I was good at the math side, physics exams are notoriously quite challenging. So I definitely struggled during revision time to kind of just boost my grades and stuff. So for me, it wasn't like it was the easiest subject, but what drove me to still take it on towards university was just the fact that it was so broad. I felt like I didn't necessarily know what I wanted to do with my job. So why don't I take something that kind of opens all doors and allows me to essentially pick later down the line. So it was quite a practical choice for me to just take something that would allow me to go anywhere. Right, now we've got lots of questions have come in. So we'll try and get to as many as possible and I'll try and kind of combine some of them that have come in as well. So I think firstly, quite a few different people have been asking, so what GCSEs did you enjoy, let's say, and also which subjects did you take at A level? So just to give people an idea of your different trajectories to get to where you are. So does anyone want to jump in first? So GCSEs wise, some of the more interesting choices aside from triple science and double maths was graphics, electronics, psychology, because I loved creating and being explorative. I think that's how you say it. So yeah, the whole idea of you don't need to enjoy science at the moment to become a scientist. You need to enjoy the scientific process where you think about what's going on in your life and looking for the answer. I think those are the two big things that really underpins every good scientist. Yeah, definitely. And I would add to that about the curiosity because often in your science lessons and maths lessons you are able to get to an answer. There's an answer there. But actually, when you get further down the line with exploring science, you actually realise that there's so many unknowns and that's really what we're delving towards and what we're trying to understand better. So that curiosity of like, I don't know the answer is really what a scientist is like, the essence of being a scientist. So Heidi, which pathway did you take? Could you just tell us your GCSEs and what you enjoyed? Yeah, so I think my choice of GCSEs and A-levels are probably a bit different to everybody else's. So I did triple science at GCSE. I did a bunch of things. I did business, photography and French as well. So kind of a bit random. And then for my A-levels, I actually did biology, French and sociology. So I didn't even do physics at A-level. And then obviously going into Biomed at uni and now kind of life has led me into medical physics. It just goes to show that you can really learn something at any stage of life that you're at. So although I didn't do kind of physics at A-level, I've still managed to get to grips with it in the workplace and really come to love and joy and learn something about it. Yeah, I suppose there's so many different pathways that are available to take. Which route did you take, Lauren? So as I mentioned, I'm from Ireland. So we don't have GCSEs or A-levels. So we have kind of, I think exams are in a similar time. So like the kind of junior cycle exam, which when I did it, there was like 11 subjects. And I think eight or nine of them are predetermined. So you don't have a whole lot of choice. So my choices for that, I think were like art and music. I think I did. But, you know, we had to do maths and science. That was part of the curriculum for everybody. So then we had a little more choice toward our leaving set exams, which is kind of the equivalent to A-levels, I guess. So we had to do at least seven subjects. So I actually did eight. I did three sciences as well. And I did accounting, which was quite random. I just liked the numbers. So yeah, I think I always knew that I liked kind of maths and I enjoyed science, but yeah, it was kind of, it was kind of something I liked, but it wasn't. I suppose it's a bit different because we have a bit less choice and definitely, yeah, there's less like options in terms of subjects we can pick as well. So yeah, the Irish cohort, maybe we don't have much variety, but that was kind of what I did anyway. And Sophie, what was your route? So, I mean, in my school, we didn't have a huge number of options. We only had two. I had to take triple science and maths in English. Out of my options, I chose arts and history. I had to also take a language. I did a little bit of French. And so it was a bit of a mix, I suppose. I really liked history at GCSE and I continued that on. So I suppose if there's anybody who is wondering whether they can kind of mix the science with the kind of literature subjects, you absolutely can. Even at university, there's opportunity to kind of do extra modules. So I did a bit of philosophy and explored that kind of area as well. Great. And so I have a question here that is in general, does medical physics involve a lot of patient contact and communication? So perhaps I've had your, Lauren, what do you have a response for them? Yeah, certainly in my job, nuclear medicine, the main kind of thing that we do is dealing with patients every single day. And I don't want to speak for Lauren, but we work very closely with medical physicists and they quite often come down if we have a problem with the camera or like something's a little bit tricky with the patient and their injection and they come down and help us. So I think medical physicists do get some patient interaction as well, but Lauren, I wonder if you want to give your side of the story. Yeah, sure. So I suppose I would say there's a little bit. It kind of depends. Like Heidi said, a lot of it would be kind of secondary. So like the people that are on the ground, the radiographers or the therapists might call us when a patient is on the bed and you might have to come down and kind of, you know, affix something or figure something out in that context. The main way that I would be interacting with patients is through kind of a radioactive therapy. So it's called Svego. So basically it's kind of like what Heidi mentioned where you have a radioactive element and it's attached to calcium and it's to treat when there's cancer in the bone. So because I'm going down when that's been administered, I would get to kind of interact with patients there. But that's just our hospital is quite small. So there are a lot of different types of therapies where physicists would get to kind of deal with patients a bit more, but definitely not as much as people that are, you know, the actual radiographers that are taking the scans or the therapists that are administering the radiotherapy. Great. Thanks. Now, I've got another question here, which is talking about how your work has changed in the pandemic and whether you think that scientists and medical scientists are more highly regarded now. Perhaps Sophie, would you like to take that one? Sorry, I just asked a real question. Could you repeat what you were using? So thinking about how your work has changed in the pandemic and whether... Yeah, yeah, I saw this on our reading. Yes, yeah. And when I say it's just again, they've changed like if scientists are more highly regarded now in the wake of the pandemic. Yeah, absolutely. It's a really good question. And I think obviously with everything going on, all the eyes are kind of on science at the moment. I think it's really touching people's day-to-day lives. And I've found myself speaking about science more than I ever have with my family, which is kind of nice in a way. I think it's nice because it's pushing science to be more transparent. I think maybe people in the audience might also agree, but as a child, I just felt like sometimes scientists just spoke loads of fancy words, but we're trying to cover up the truth or just make things more complicated than necessary. And I think with everything going on now, there's a push for us to kind of think about how we communicate, what we're doing more, and be a bit more open and honest. So I quite like that aspect. And as far as my day-to-day, I suppose it's been strange because I started my PhD this year in the pandemic. So I haven't really experienced life outside the pandemic as a PhD student. I'm hoping that when I'm able to go into the lab and into the office and interact with people, I'll also see another side of research through kind of just social interaction and learning from others. Great, thanks. And Jamie, I've got a question for you about kind of advice for giving yourself the best chance to get an scientific apprenticeship. So for those who are thinking about taking a similar route to you that you have. The number one thing is enthusiasm. When you're going in on an apprenticeship, you are very much at the bottom of the pile. You have to recognize that you haven't had as long a time in training. You have to recognize that you won't have the knowledge that everyone around you has, but so does everyone in the company. They know that, and so all they really want from you is someone who's eager to learn, someone who's going to listen, and someone who's once trained up will be an active part of the team. So yeah, my advice for anyone going from an apprenticeship is be passionate, be enthusiastic, and also don't be afraid to communicate how you're feeling and don't be afraid to ask questions. I think asking questions is the number one thing for any apprentice to do. Great, thanks Jamie, really sound advice. And we've got a few questions about perhaps the harder parts of your job. So I would like to know what's first of all the hardest part of your job and second of all perhaps have there been any times when you thought oh perhaps you won't be able to go on to the next stage? Because I know certainly for me I found university quite difficult and when I was an undergraduate I thought I don't know if I'll be able to succeed now, but then I found out about kind of the medical side of physics and it really sparked an interest in me and it made me continue to be motivated in this area. So do you have any of you have a similar feelings about part that's very difficult or through your journey what's perhaps been a tough time? Everybody open at the same time. Well, I think working clinically there's challenges that we face every day. Sometimes we don't get because our radioactive injections they come from a different hospital. They're not made here. So sometimes there are problems at the radiopharmacy so we don't get our injections or things arrive late. So that can be quite tough but I think the most important thing kind of in any scenario is just surrounding yourself with really supportive people that you can go to for advice. So I know my colleagues here are absolutely brilliant and even with uni work at the moment if I've got any questions I can go to them and they can kind of help me out or share their experience. So yeah, I think it's always really important to have good people around you and Lauren did you have something to add as well? I did. Yeah. So I'm actually really similar to yourself, Yolanda. So in terms of the path and I would say that when I was leaving school I was really passionate about physics and really interested and definitely just had the love for it but kind of over the course of my degree toward the end. I just didn't have that same kind of love for it because I think the area of physics in my head. I thought it's really math. I love math's perfect but actually I like to see the application. So toward the end I kind of, you know because I just wasn't in the right branch of it. And I think I kind of had lost a little bit of that spark but exactly the same as yourself as soon as I kind of thought about the medical side of physics and realized that this was a job that you can do. So you get to do physics but you have a really clear kind of focus. Yeah, it really kind of inspired me I suppose and I think like you said it's the motivation and the passion side of it like even if it's difficult you're motivated to work through that because you have the passion and you know for the area you're in and I think that's the key difference. In terms of the day-to-day job then I think for me the kind of most difficult part is probably just the responsibility like there is a lot of things that you know there's going to be a direct effect on a patient if you do something wrong but having said that and kind of timing what Heidi mentioned having you know you're working as part of a team and everything is checked so much and your colleagues are there to support you so I think even though that is difficult there is definitely supports there to kind of counteract that as well. Now I have another question which is actually a good one for this session because it's what's the difference between a medical degree and a biomedical degree? So perhaps Heidi if you want to take that and if anyone else wants to jump in after Heidi as well. So yeah well I did biomedical science so we learn all about disease and the human body so anatomy and medicines as well it goes into all that kind of thing. I think medical science and biomedical science degree are the same thing but nuclear medicine is slightly different because that's more to do with the radioactivity and the different sorts of like physics that come into play within medical physics as well. So it's biomedical science is kind of like very broad and then nuclear medicine is kind of a more specific kind of thing that we do in hospitals I guess. I didn't know if anybody else could explain that and a little bit better. Because also I always think about there's a lot of people who do in science degrees consider whether to do medicine or not and so I think that say for example I did consider for a very short amount of time and I thought no it's not quite for me but what I do now is developing techniques which the doctors can use. So it's almost like looking at healthcare from a different angle as instead of from the patient aspect it's actually from like the tools aspect and from how we can understand the body in terms of like the research side of things. So I think that that's something that I never knew when I was at school that was available. Yeah. I was just gonna say I agree with you on that actually and I was similar in the sense that when I kind of decided science was for me at A level or college I still felt like I didn't wanna go down the medicine route and become a doctor per se in the kind of conventional sense. So yeah, I can relate to that definitely and it's interesting now because I guess with the machine learning side in a similar way I'm kind of more focused with the tools and kind of higher up the chain in a sense and it's quite exciting but I think I find like just the way that technology is kind of revolutionizing that side of things quite exciting but it's something that I didn't necessarily know existed before ending up there, if that makes sense. I thought physics was physics and you could be a doctor you see with Ivor or you could become a doctor or you could do physics and chemistry but it's been really nice exploring and the kind of intersection between the two. Great, now we're coming to the last five minutes or so so I think perhaps it might be a good idea to try and get through as many of these questions as possible if we can just do a quick fire, a quick answer for each of the questions that I posed to you. So first of all, Jamie, someone asked how long does it take to do a 3D scan and what are you 3D scanning, 3D printing, sorry, 3D printing? So I have just managed to sneak an alter in there but it's about 50 millimeters cubed per second. Yes, I think that's right. We run about 60 millimeters per second in going along the x-axis and we are extruding a tube, like a tube of material about 0.4 millimeters. What that means realistically, so when we were doing the pelvis earlier that was probably about two weeks worth of printing but naturally we fail quite a lot. So we try, try and try again and we can spend up to three, four months on a project before we're really happy with it and ready to take it to the clinical setting. Great, thanks. And Heidi, what's your biggest achievement so far? Sorry, it's a big one. I know, that's really tough. I would say being accepted onto the nuclear medicine course at UB, so obviously I'm still in the middle of my masters and still doing that but even being accepted onto the course and getting onto it, feels like quite a big deal for me especially seeing as I haven't done physics in the past it just goes to show that if you, if you work really hard at something then then you can do it and you can be successful. Great, that's really great. And Lauren, how do we produce gamma rays? So it's kind of similar to the way an extra machine works it's just that, I'm referring tonight the kind of treatment machine that we use for radiotherapy. So you basically have to get an electron which is like one of the particles that makes up atoms which make up all of us and fire it really, really fast at a target of some kind and when it hits it, it'll cause the target to kind of produce what we call photons. So these are kind of pockets of energy and or gamma rays, it's the same thing. And they'll, we produce basically a lot of them and that creates a beam and that's what we use to treat. So that is a very simplified version if you saw the inside of the machine you thought you want to describe it in that but that's my quick answer. Great, thanks Lauren. Sophie, I've got a bit of a harder one for you I've reframed the question but do you think that the science is kind of an inclusive place to work? That is a very heavy question but it's a good one. I think it's becoming more so definitely and I think that there's definitely intersections that still kind of require quite a lot of work honestly but I think that as everybody's kind of as light gets shed on the different intersections of society I think there's efforts to make science more inclusive. Yeah, definitely. And I think lots of people are working quite hard to make it as inclusive as possible and I think also what's necessary to say is I think one of the things that motivates people in the field that they're working in is when you're passionate about something. So if you're really interested in working in this area then I think keep pursuing it as well even though there might be a few different challenges. So Jamie, which part of your job do you enjoy the most? Just every day where I'm solving the problem earlier I said I loved the idea of solving a problem and that's the number one thing for me just finding the biggest challenge I can do and knowing I've made a dent in it. Yeah, great. Now Heidi, do you think that science literacy is important and also the study of, sorry, that's the same question in the second part of the question but do you think science literacy is important? Yeah, I do think it is but I don't think it's something that you have to kind of be a natural at. I think when you go onto like A-Levels and University and stuff that sort of things just kind of develops naturally the more kind of scientific papers that you read and people that you talk to you kind of start to build up this vocab that you didn't have before. So don't worry if you look at research papers now and you think what the heck is all of these words? That comes with time and the further you go in your studies you won't even realize it you'll just suddenly kind of start to understand what these people are talking about. Yeah, and I think also to add to that is you often hear about science capital as well that science isn't just about studying the books that it's also like being curious, maybe going to museums, doing your own experiments all of these adds to kind of your scientific toolbox that we have that we can take with us. So I'm just very aware of the time now. So I think I suppose just to close perhaps if each of you would say you're the most enjoyable part of your job. So Lauren. Sorry, I was off unmuted. I think my favourite part of my job it's been said already, but it's the variety and it's the problem solving for sure. That kind of challenge. It's great. Heidi. So I absolutely love working with patients. I think if you love science and you know that you want to work with people then a career in nuclear medicine or medical physics is definitely a good choice for you. Sophie. I probably say alongside problem solving and kind of the knowledge that is going to help people in the future it might contribute to that. I think just the potential the potential for new technology and coming up with new ideas. Right. Thanks. Sorry, Jamie, not to miss you out. I'd say the nonstop learning and the nonstop questioning. Yeah, brilliant. And from myself, I really love using the physics. So every day I do MRI coding and then when you actually get an image that you can see, I think that that's really it's amazing to think that we can see inside of the body. And so just to wrap up then thanks everyone for coming to the session and thank you to Lauren, to Heidi, to Sophie and to Jamie for your fantastic presentations and like it's so interesting and so varied. So before you go everyone at home or at school or wherever you might be please would be really grateful if you could give us feedback about how you found the session. So if you can just scan this QR code that's on your screens right now it will take you through to a short survey. So do please let us know what you think and have a great weekend everyone. Thanks a lot.